Why? Because we're a UK platform with a UK focus and support team. We strive to provide the best support we can for our customers. That's why we're rated 4.8/5.0 on independent review websites like Trustpilot and G2.com compared to Shopify's 1.4/5.0.
ShopWired doesn't only have the best support, we have an unrivalled UK focused set of fetaures providing all the tools you need to build and grow your online business.
Record numbers of UK businesses moved their Shopify ecommerce websites to ShopWired in 2023, and the number of customers migrating increases every month.
One of the key reasons Shopify customers tell us they're moving to ShopWired is that we're a UK focused platform, built and developed from the UK.
Customers like our features that are specific to UK businesses (like our features for VAT), and they like that they can speak to a support team that's based in the UK too. Shopify receives poor reviews in comparison for the support that it offers.
Another key reason Shopify store owners move to ShopWired is the level of support offered by our support team.
We put a lot of effort into supporting our customers, whether they're complete novices or experienced ecommerce experts who just need a helping hand from time to time.
Whilst the base price of Shopify is low (at £24/month), it comes with many hidden charges such as transaction fees, expensive apps and high costs for themes. The hidden costs of Shopify are examined in more detail in our article, How much does Shopify cost?
It's for these reasons, and many more, that we're consistently rated as the best alternative to Shopify both in the UK and around the world.
Customers moving to ShopWired from Shopify tell us that they are tired of the different apps that you need to pay for to achieve basic functionality.
A lot of the functionality included in Shopify's expensive apps is included in ShopWired's core platform completely free of charge. Apps providing functionality like the ability to set delivery rates in the UK based on the customer's postcode are charged for on Shopify but free on ShopWired.
The arrangement of the Shopify app store means that you'll need to speak to a different support team for each app that you have (as Shopify doesn't provide support on the 3rd party apps it hosts).
99% of apps available on ShopWired's app store have been built and developed by us.
ShopWired is built, managed and supported from the UK. Customers prefer to use a UK company with a UK support team and most users migrating from Shopify to ShopWired tell us this.
ShopWired prides itself on the level of support we provide, always striving for perfection. Our ratings on indepdendent review websites like TrustPilot and G2.com place us as the best rated ecommerce platform in the UK.
Shopify offers just 9 free themes. Each of the other themes they offer comes at an additional cost of between $150 - $300 each.
All ShopWired’s themes are offered to all our customers free of charge.
Each of Shopify’s plans means that you have to pay an additional transaction fee to Shopify (in addition to the fee you pay to your payment gateway).
On Shopify’s Basic plan, the transaction fee is 2%.
If you use Shopify’s payment gateway you don’t pay a transaction fee, but Shopify’s gateway is just a rebranded version of Stripe. To use Shopify Payments you’ll pay rates from 2.2% +20p (Stripe costs just 1.4% +20p).
For more information on Shopify's transaction fees check out our blog post.
If you’re currently selling online with Shopify, you may be concerned about how easily you can migrate your store to ShopWired, but you needn’t be.
When considering whether to migrate, it’s important to remember that the ShopWired onboarding team are here to help you as much as you need them to during the process.
We have also built systems to migrate product data, including images, and customer data automatically within just a few minutes. Most of the other data on your Shopify account can be copied across quickly, and then you just need to choose a new ShopWired theme and re-brand it using our online theme editor.
Find out more about migrating your Shopify store to ShopWired.
Correct as of 1st April 2024
A like for like comparison of the two packages, correct as at 1st April 2024.
| Shopwired | Shopify UK pricing | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | £34.95 + VAT | £25.00 |
| Additional fees on customer orders | 0% | 2.0% |
| Review rating on TrustPilot for customer support | 4.9/5 | 1.4/5 |
| Customer help and support team | Based in the UK | Not based in the UK |
| Cost of templates/themes for your website | All themes free of charge | 9 free, 64 paid |
| Wholesale/trade/business to business features | Yes | Not present |
Moving your online store from Shopify to ShopWired could be the best move you've ever made.
ShopWired's automatic migration tools make migrating your product and customer data from Shopify a breeze. Simply download your data from your Shopify account and upload it straight into ShopWired.
Find out more information about how easy it is and make the move today.
The main reason customers migrate from Shopify to ShopWired is that we are a UK company, with a platform built and developed in the UK and supported by a UK based support team. We're proud to be British.
Shopify have over 1 million customers, so they're a massive company compared to ShopWired. But we believe bigger isn't always better, in fact we'd say our smaller size (hosting around 10,000 websites in the UK) makes us an ideal choice for any UK company because we value each and every customer that we have.
Shopify Payments is built using the Stripe payment gateway, its just rebranded as Shopify Payments. If you use it, you won't pay a transaction fee but Shopify Payments is expensive compared to when you just use Stripe (0.8% per transaction more expensive). You can read more about Shopify's transaction fees here.
Shopify's basic package is £25 a month, compared with ShopWired's charge of £34.95 + VAT per month. Looking at the monthly fee alone, Shopify is slightly cheaper, but Shopify has many other hidden costs. Find out more about Shopify's hidden costs in our article, How much does shopify cost?.
Unfortunately Shopify themes can't be used on other platforms like ShopWired so instead you'll need to pick a new theme from ShopWired's collection and customise its look and feel. If you want something a little more bespoke please contact us and we can discuss your requirements.
ShopWired doesn't provide its own POS system, instead we'd recommend that you use Vend which is one of the largest POS systems in the world. Your ShopWired account can connect seamlessly with Vend to sync products, stock and orders.
No, there is no reason for you to lose any search engine rankings. If you have a good position in search results then we have some guidance for you to follow when migrating to make sure the process is as smooth as it can be and that your rankings are not disrupted. For more details see here.
You can use ShopWired's migration system to copy your customer accounts data across automatically. All the customer information will be preserved but they'll need to use a new password to access their account information. We can place a notification on the account login page giving customers an easy way to create a new password.
Absolutely. In fact many users migrating from Shopify report a slightly quicker download time for their website because of our server locations and overall platform architecture.
Yes. ShopWired does offer an enterprise solution and its used by some well known brands in the UK like Superdrug and Wowcher. If you're comparing ShopWired Enterprise and Shopify Plus, you can read more about Shopify Plus here.
Shopify costs £25/month but after adding transaction fees, theme charges and expensive apps, users end up paying much more
How much does Shopify really cost?
Shopify's unique pricing structure comes with many hidden costs, not least transaction fees
Shopify transaction fees explained
